Off topic: a-la-matt

My friend Matt writes an off-topic post on soccer once in a while. He is a real soccer fan, who grew up in the wrong country. Therefore, he chose to root for an English team (Arsenal) and France (where he spent some of his life) as his national team. He often writes analogies between open source companies (mainly Alfresco lately ;-) and soccer.
Matt was the reason for me to start this blog and I like him. Unfortunately for him, he is just bad at picking soccer teams. His Arsenal was crashed in the Champions League final (nobody remembers who you beat to get there, people just remember the winner), France was crashed today in the World Cup final by Italy.
This is a day for some analogy for me as well, I guess. Italy won showing passion, creativity and talent. A phenomenal defense, beat only by a penalty kick and an own goal. Lots of goals, still. What I would call smart playing. Fabio Grosso is the image of this team. A not-so-young guy who played for Perugia and Palermo (not really top teams) so far, but who was instrumental for us to get to the semifinal with a great run on the left that ended in a penalty kick, who scored in the semifinal against Germany and shot the last penalty kick today. Heart and talent, but mostly passion and a never-give-up attitude.
I guess you know which open source company I feel looks like Italy... so I will leave the analogy for Matt's next post.